SCADA systems and architectures provide process supervisory control and data collection capabilities used to operate most industrial systems today. Most industrial processes and machines are also controlled by SCADA systems using industrial controllers such as PLCs.
A programmable logic controller (PLC) is a specialized computer control system configured to execute software which continuously gathers data on the state of input devices to control the state of output devices. A PLC typically includes three major components: a processor (which may include volatile memory), volatile memory comprising an application program, and one or more input/output (I/O) ports for connecting to other devices in the automation system.
PLCs are utilized in various industrial settings to control production devices and other automation devices which generate a large amount of data in their daily operations. This data may include, for example, sensor data, actuator and control program parameters, and information associated with service activities. However, conventional automation systems, and conventional PLCs in particular, are not capable of fully utilizing this data. For example, in most systems, due to hardware and software limitations, only a small fraction of this data can be analyzed and stored. Massive amounts of irrelevant data may be produced while important data points are missed. Compression may be applied at the higher automation layers on unimportant data, while important data is lost while travelling through the automation layers.
In basic SCADA architectures, information from sensors or manual inputs can be sent to the PLCs, which then send that information to computers with SCADA software. The SCADA software analyzes and displays the data in order to help operators and other workers in reducing waste while improving efficiency in the manufacturing process.
One of the difficulties with such conventional systems is that it takes a great deal of time to configure the SCADA system, particularly for the data point configuration to allow the SCADA system to attain the correct live data from controllers. Accordingly, there exists a need for an efficient technique for automatically generating data points in a SCADA system.